Semiconductor devices are used in many electronic and other applications. Semiconductor devices may comprise integrated circuits that are formed on semiconductor wafers. Alternatively, semiconductor devices may be formed as monolithic devices, e.g., discrete devices. Semiconductor devices are formed on semiconductor wafers by depositing many types of thin films of material over the semiconductor wafers, patterning the thin films of material, doping selective regions of the semiconductor wafers, etc.
In a conventional semiconductor fabrication process, a large number of semiconductor devices are fabricated in a single wafer. At the preliminary stage of fabrication, a field oxide is grown and patterned to open active regions while covering peripheral regions. Alternatively, other types of isolation regions may be formed to form the active regions. The open active regions are processed, for example, doped with dopants to form device regions. IN particular, in such processing, the formation of the active regions precedes any other processing to form the device regions. After completion of device level and interconnect level fabrication processes, the semiconductor devices on the wafer are separated. For example, the wafer may undergo singulation. During singulation, the wafer is mechanically treated and the semiconductor devices are physically separated to form individual dies.